Larry Hodges Science Fiction & Fantasy

Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions – Release Date March 8

Last week in my blog I wrote about the release of the novel on Jan. 26 (yesterday), and the mysterious “Top Secret” cover for the novel. And now the truth has come out – not just for you, but for me as well.

Why was I so mysterious about the cover last week? Because I hadn’t seen it, and had no clue what would be on the cover, despite the fact that at that point, the novel was supposed to have already been at the printer, with copies available two days later for the Confusion SF Convention in Michigan. However, all was not as it seemed.

I’d been emailing with the publisher for many weeks, asking about the cover, and couldn’t get an answer. So you can imagine how my frustration grew daily as the release day approached and the publisher simply wouldn’t discuss the cover with me. I finally resigned myself to the idea that I, the writer, wasn’t to be “in the loop” regarding the cover, and that I wouldn’t see the cover of my own novel until after it was published. You can imagine my thoughts on that. I was also frustrated by the lack of any pre-release publicity – not even a press release. I was told that would go out after publication, i.e. there would be no attempt at building up buzz. Again, I was not happy. There was also an “Upcoming Books” listing at the publisher’s page, but my novel wasn’t on it – neither were any others – it was blank.

Then, late on Thursday night, Jan. 21, five days before the scheduled release, I got that email no author wants to hear – the publisher was closing down!!! Finally I learned why there had been no cover or publicity – since the publisher was closing, the novel wasn’t to be published.(I was asked not to go public with this info until the end of the week, so we’re well past that.)

Or was it?

One day later I received an email from one of the assistant editors, who was negotiating to buy the company. And lo and behold, it looks like that’s happening, and so World Weaver Press will continue! And they still want to publish my novel. However, it’ll have to be postponed. The publication date is now March 8, assuming all goes well.

Hip Hip Hooray!!!

The down side is that the novel was long planned to come out in the middle of the presidential election, since it’s a political novel that covers the race for president of Earth in the year 2100. (With a third-party moderate challenge, a father pitted against a daughter, and an alien ambassador observing and often participating.) The plan was to have it out before the Iowa caucuses, which will be held Feb. 1 (next Monday). So we’ll lose some of that. In an ideal world, of course, the plan is that I’ll be interviewed on all the news shows along with all the candidates, and of course Trump will attack it, calling me a “hack writer,” and that’ll make it a best seller.

Or perhaps Trump will sue me, because he’s in the novel – sort of. I wrote the novel long before he entered the race for president, so I wasn’t taking advantage of that. One of the four main characters is a professional table tennis player who drops out of the pro circuit to run the worldwide third-party challenge for the presidency. He is sponsored by Trump Sports, and uses Trump table tennis equipment! Yep, I decided to make the imaginary Trump Sports a big company in the year 2100, where it’s mentioned six times – the pro table tennis player uses a Trump Maestro Prime racket, wears Trump table tennis shoes, and at one point browses over a pack of Trump sports cards, where the best table tennis players in the world are featured. (He’s disgusted because he’s not included. That Trump is such a hack!)

The upside to all of this is that now we’ll have time to build up buzz, and we’ll still get the novel out during the height of the presidential race. So . . . should I wear makeup when I get interviewed on CNN?